Rivet Logic Blogs

Day: Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Managing enterprise content is something that many organizations struggle with. Digital content is around us everywhere we go; enabling secure, enterprise-wide access to that content is critical for any business to remain competitive. Organizations often find themselves turning to Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions to help address these business challenges.

However, not all ECM systems are created equal. As the ECM and digital landscape have evolved, modern ECM solutions are offering many benefits that their legacy counterparts lack, including more out-of-the-box functionality, platform flexibility, ease of integration, open standards, and cost savings. If your existing ECM has become too costly to maintain or no longer aligns with your IT strategy, then it’s a good idea to start looking at alternative options.

In particular, if you’re a current Documentum customer, then you’re probably also aware of OpenText’s recent acquisition of Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division (ECD), which may have you wondering how the acquisition will impact you and your business. Will investment and innovation stall as Documentum products gets absorbed into a crowded portfolio of products? Will the people behind the products stay involved and remain there to help?

One alternative to consider is Alfresco, which provides a modern platform that can really help you to accelerate Digital Transformation initiatives and move from older technologies in a way that makes sense to your business.

Did you know that Documentum co-founder John Newton also co-founded Alfresco? While the two products have similar roots and both offer robust content management, collaboration, Records Management (RM), and Business Process Management (BPM) capabilities, there are also many differences that make Alfresco a more attractive option for better long-term ROI.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how the two platforms differ:

Alfresco

Documentum

Technology

Modern infrastructure supporting open standards

Proprietary infrastructure relying on aging technology

Pricing

Software subscription model with no software purchase cost

No vendor lock-in: Flexibility in choosing system integration partners for solutions

Traditional software purchase fee with maintenance costs

Vendor lock-in: Solutions & add-ons can only be implemented through pricey Documentum consulting

Out-of-the-box Features

More robust set of features available out-of-the-box leveraging best-of-breed open source components

Integrated enterprise search through Solr and Collaboration through Share

Easy integration with third party systems through a variety of industry standard protocols (CMIS, REST, CIFS, FTP, WebDAV, etc.)

Difficult integration through a proprietary web services layer with limited functionality and lack of industry standards

Your ECM needs will continue to evolve, and the technologies you implement should be flexible enough to adapt to those changes. If your existing ECM no longer meets your business needs, then it’s time to consider switching to a solution that can help maximize the value of your content.